Pivot to Peace: No to War on China!
The Red Nation stands firmly against the settler United States’ imperialist aggression towards China and the resulting trends of rising Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism within their hegemon. As anti-imperialists, our position will always be unwaveringly anti-war.
After saturating North Africa and Southwest Asia with destruction and death, the US is winding down from decades of “War on Terror.” The imperialists’ new strategy for maintaining their fragile economy was popularly described by former Secretary of State (Secretary of War), Hilary Clinton, as the “Pivot to Asia.” In an article published in Foreign Policy, 2011, she writes:
The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action. […] Just as Asia is critical to America’s future, an engaged America is vital to Asia’s future. […] With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: […] expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.
America’s Pacific Century
Why is Asia critical to the US-Empire’s future? As we understand from the history of white supremacy and “Manifest Destiny,” the imperialists have always been open about their strategies of conquest. In the latest iteration of their dreams to bring “democracy” and “civilization” to what they see as “backwards societies,” they have shifted their focus to China, as their primary physical and economic barrier to accessing all of Asia.
The US has been prepping this “pivot to Asia” over the past half-dozen presidencies by committing genocide of Indigenous peoples across the Pacific Ocean and by building nearly 500 bases over the perimeter of China.
A few years ago, we documented the US occupation of Hawai’i as a strategic point for military operations. Similarly, other islands such as Aolepān Aorōkin M̧ajeļ (so-called Marshall Islands) serve as points for the purpose of maintaining geopolitical hegemony. US-aggression against the “threat” of communism goes back over a century and we must remember our relatives, from small autonomous islands to larger nations such as the Philippines, who’s innocent lives were used as cannon fodder for weapons testing, lands desecrated for the building of bases and testing of nuclear fallout, and where women, girls, and LGBTQ are brutalized and violated by the colonizing forces of heteropatriarchy.
The past two years have seen dramatic escalation of imperialist aggression. For example, the US military breaching Chinese waters and airspaces, unprecedented geopolitical threats by the Trump administration, and a heightening of propaganda war surrounding Hong Kong from both sides of the political aisle. As a cherry on top, voices against China have also come from the anti-communist left which has grown through the recent progressive-imperialist movements.
While the destructive effects on human and non-human relatives by a new US war in Asia cannot be understated, it is also important to defend the remaining socialist projects of the world. The fall of the USSR opened the world to a new level of imperialist domination which functioned unhindered. Breaking or Balkanizing China would re-open all of East Asia to the dominance of US imperialism and would be a crushing blow to the socialist projects of Venezuela, DPRK, Cuba, and Vietnam who rely on China in more ways than one. Further, nations such as Iran and many African nation states, who have found economic alternatives outside of the US-led IMF, would be subject to new levels of US imperialist violence.
Finally, the heightened US aggression against China has reinvigorated the empire’s historical and orientalist “Yellow Peril” trend in which Asian relatives are demonized as backwards, disease-carrying, violent, and monolithically brainwashed by demagogues. The onset of Coronavirus-related propaganda fueled violent hate crimes against Asian relatives, such as acid attacks and beatings, across the globe and particularly in the US. Further, Trump has used the pandemic to fuel his attacks on Chinese students, creating hostile working environments for these workers in the US on visa.
As internationalists, it is our duty to promote peace on all frontlines of US aggression. We unite over anti-imperialism, anti-war advocacy, and defending all victims of US imperialism. No to war on China! Down with US imperialism! Protect our Asian relatives!
